Just for the record, and I am aware of what Roscosmos stated in their press release today, we got the signature of (then) Roscosmos head Anatoly Perminov already on March 9, formerly approving the design.

As written elsewhere on collectSPACE, this will be the final patch based on the children's competition that was initiated for Gennadi Padalka's Soyuz TMA-14 flight and has been ongoing for the past three years.

Robert Pearlman

quote:Originally posted by hoorenz:...this will be the final patch based on the children's competition

Oleg Kononenko was unaware of this when I interviewed him today. He expressed regret that such was the case. (His full comments will be shared in an article to be published closer to his launch in December.)

hoorenz

The project had been organized by Roscosmos Public Relations (with a commercial sponsor paying for the trips). Responsibility for 'operational' aspects of the Soyuz patches recently shifted from Roscosmos PR directly to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. So that is the main reason why this particular competition had to be ended. We will have to wait and see how GCTC will organize things.

Marwin2

What is the meaning of the Scorpius Constellation on the patch?

hoorenz

Biggest star of Scorpius is Antares, which is the call sign of the crew. Oleg Kononenko chose a call sign with an 'A' as a reference to his children, twins Andrey and Alise.